As leaders pussyfoot on climate, a teen goes all out

Greta Thunberg, 15, has emerged as the face of urgency and action over climate change. The Swedish schoolgirl decided last summer that she cannot be a passive bystander as humanity wrecks the planet.

She abandoned the “business as usual” approach and launched a school strike, staging a sit-in outside the Swedish parliament. At that time, her firm will couldn’t be deterred by flippant remarks made by passersby, many of whom shrugged off a critical message written on a banner in her hand, which read: Skolstrejk för Klimatet (school strike for climate).

Things have taken a 360-degree turn for Thunberg in just eight months, writes The Guardian. Hers is no more a lone fight — the world knows her and hails her steely grit. The message on her banner has spread across the world, and has been translated in dozens of languages.

Thunberg oozes a deep sense of concern, recounting how the films on marine pollution, starving bears and so on showed to her at school sparked a lingering unease in her, reports Wired. She has been ritualistic in returning to the cobblestone every Friday to voice her pain on the abysmal state of the planet, and when she does the same on March 15, people across 71 countries will be joining her battle.